The first major retrospective exhibition in the United States devoted to Brazilian artist Lygia Pape (1927– 2004) is currently housed at The Met Breuer. A critical figure in the development of Brazilian modern art, Pape combined geometric abstraction with notions of body, time, and space in unique ways aiming to integrate the art object with life experience. Covering a prolific, unclassifiable career that spanned five decades, the exhibition will examine Pape’s extraordinarily rich oeuvre as manifest across varied media, from sculpture, prints, and painting to installation, performance, and film.
Alongside Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Pape is one of the most prominent artists of her generation and was a leading protagonist at a crucial moment for the history of art in Brazil. During a period of intense industrialization following World War II, concrete and constructivist European trends entered the country where figuration had been the dominant vocabulary. Pape was part of the Concrete movement (Grupo Frente) in Rio de Janeiro, reworking the legacies of geometric abstraction. It then evolved in 1959 into the Neo-concrete group, aimed at giving priority to experimentation and process over any normative principle. She was among the first to consider integrating the space of the art-work with the space of the viewer with works that demand participation or interaction, marking a breakthrough moment in 20th-century art.
The exhibition is made possible by The Daniel and Estrellita Brodsky Foundation and The Garcia Family Foundation and It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with Projeto Lygia Pape at Met Breuer.
More information visit the museum website: www.metmuseum.org